


If there's one person, it's you

by GraceEliz



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Dragons, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Gotham, Slums, eventually, snuggles, soft, soft platonic affection, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-09-07 14:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: For the 'dragons' prompt.This is over 1000 words of Harvey being sick, and Bruce taking care of him.Of course, Bruce has something he isn't telling Harvey. That's where the dragons come in.





	1. Slum

**Author's Note:**

> This has so many headcanons in. These include (and you can pry them from my cold dead hands):  
Crown Prince of Gotham Bruce.   
Harvey comes from the Narrows.   
The Narrows are based off 19th/20thC British slums, in the big cities such as Manchester, London, and Liverpool.  
I gave Harv TB because I wanted to. I also looked up the cures, and I'm combining the old slums with modern medicine.

“Harvey!” Bruce hissed at his best friend through the crack of the window, glancing furtively up into the starred night sky. “Harv, wake up, I have a situation.” His friend groaned a little, shuffling deeper into his cocoon of blankets. Nothing else for it, then, sighed Bruce, but to go in. He hated having to intrude on Harvey’s private spaces without invite – it wasn’t like the Narrows allowed many people the privacy Harvey protected so vehemently.

Bruce carefully pressed himself through the tiny window. These little flats were at most three rooms, and Harvey’s was a single room with a shared toilet down the corridor that only worked four days in a week. Cholera was a risk that still existed here, much to Bruce’s despair and morbid amazement. Cholera, and all the other diseases found in city slums. Diphtheria. Typhoid. Measles, rubella, deficiency diseases like rickets and scurvy. The packet of medicine in his chest pocket felt far too light.

Harvey barely awoke as Bruce whispered his name again. The hard floor was worn smooth with age, but it felt like they were forever plucking splinters out of each other’s palms and feet and knees and elbows. If only the dragons would come back – they’d take down the corrupted government and their healing breath could cure all the desperate poor, especially the children. Pushing himself to his knees, Bruce repeated Harvey’s name louder. They couldn’t wake the neighbours; nobody could know that the young Crowned Prince was sneaking into the slum of all slums to visit the disowned son of the Narrows’ cruelest man.

“Br’s? Th’ you?”

Bruce ducked his head in a wince at the hoarse weakness of his friend’s voice. He pressed his hand to the packet in his shirt. “Yeah,” he croaked back, “I got you more meds.”

“Heh,” wheezed Harvey, “Y’ stole ‘em? Crown Prin’ o’ Gotham stealin’ meds f’r a slum.”

Bruce shook his head. “Paid cash.” He stood and shuffled to the pallet Harvey called a bed. He’d stolen that mattress, remembered Bruce, dragged it to Harvey and told him to take it without asking questions. Harvey took the mattress. A bout of hacking coughs spurred him the last few steps to catch his friend before the coughing toppled him off the low bed. Blood-speckled blankets knotted about his legs and chest, the marked pillow cast on the boards before Bruce had even entered.

“Jeez, Harv, this – you got worse since I last came huh,” bemoaned Bruce as he hugged Harvey’s limp body close. Ragged pants and gasps filled the damp night air. Harvey patted Bruce’s thigh weakly in thanks.

“Almo’ fell th’ time,” he croaked summoning a limp smile. “Y’ go’ my meds?”

“Here, lie down so I can get them out. They’re in my pocket.”

Harvey rolled his head to follow Bruce’s movements. There was a blanket rolled uncomfortably under his lower back, something scratchy scrunched under his right leg, and a slow pulse of pain down his spine. His chest throbbed, his eyes throbbed, his throat raw with hacking. He’d stopped feeling his lungs. There was a clinic, four streets away, but with this winter’s outbreak of tuberculosis every doctor and quack and medic and wise woman in the city was facing down queues of whole blocks, and seeing all those kids and their mothers waiting for a sliver of hope twisted Harvey’s chest something fierce. He didn’t like to rely on Bruce, public figure as he was, but his best friend (only friend) refused to pass on what he considered a responsibility.

The packet of medicine felt too small, too insignificant to be full of life-saving drugs. Bruce wished he could get more of the stuff, bring it for the little ones who hacked and coughed. He’d studied up on tuberculosis, knew that his best bet was probably to establish a sanatorium somewhere away from the smog. Maybe even an orphanage, a little way into the countryside, get the smog out of their lungs. More than anything he wished he could take Harvey away with him. He popped four pills into his palm, and fished the water bottle out of his satchel. It had been discarded on the floor without second thought, and he felt a little bad about that considering the contents, but Harvey came first.

“Seems strange that TB kills but it only takes six months of antibiotics to cure. And you know in England this is all on the NHS,” mused Bruce as he propped Harvey on his chest, twisted in strange ways to stop Harvey’s limps muscles sliding him straight back into the nest. He was met with a bleary glare. Harvey swallowed the tablets, grimacing at the rough feel of them against the red-raw of his throat. He savoured the water, resisting what Bruce knew was the urge to guzzle until nothing remained to be taken from him. The display of trust yanked at Bruce’s heartstrings like nothing ever had. When Harvey settled against him, limp hair tucked into Bruce’s neck, tears fogged his eyes and he ducked his lips to Harvey’s clammy forehead. They sat for half an hour or so watching the grey dawn through the small broken window.

Soft broken humming floated in the room. Harvey’s pale thin hand was silhouetted against the yellowing sky, the last stars twinkling behind him. He moved his fingers, just feeling the cold air against them and watching them shiver. Bruce was a hard wall of strength behind him, a best friend, brother. It hit him suddenly that his hands would no longer wield the twin daggers he cherished (twin blades, twisted pommel, tucked under him in the mess of ragged bedding) in defense of his loved ones. Well, one. He only had Bruce left now.

Bruce tucked his cheek against Harvey’s crown, watching his friends weak hand grasp at far-off stars fading into morning. The grey filthy room gradually brightened, illuminating the poverty Harvey survived in.

“I can’ ‘member last time I had clean water.”

“Really?” Bruce frowned down, “Like, water to wash in?”

Harvey nodded. “Was last time I saw Alf, think. Lon’ time.”

Horror wove its gritty path through Bruce’s lungs. That had to be – three months. It was a miracle Harvey didn’t smell worse, frankly. An idea struck between his eyes, and he cast his sharp gaze at Harvey. “Harv. How did you wash.”

Harvey pressed his lips together.

“Please.”

“Waited for rain. An’ ol’ Tim, likes me. Brought water.”  
Old Tim, he’d met. Old Tim was thirty-five or so. Bruce felt that said far too much about the life expectancy here. He held tighter to his best friend. At some point he had to address what he had ensconced in his satchel, but it could wait a little longer. Just until Harvey was warm again.


	2. Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can I borrow a knife?"  
"Excuse me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this done. Three updates in a day? I'm spoiling you all.

The sun traced weakly through the ever-present smog hanging in the Gotham sky. With dawn came the movement of the working masses, the screech of the factory whistles down on the docks, the high piercing note of the bells in the mills. It meant Bruce had to leave for the Manor. Harvey shifted against him.

“You goin’?”

“No. I have something you need to see first,” he answered. He carefully avoided meeting Harvey’s eyes as he settled him in the nest, propped up against the damp wall. It didn’t stop the weight of the feverish gaze fixed on his back as he crouched in front of the satchel. Inside this box, hope. The box was slightly larger than his two hands, a bit beaten, surprisingly ornate. Carvings of leaves and figs wound over the lid and trickled down the sides in a mimicry of garden pavilions like those in Wayne Manor and the rich district of Bristol. Two rusty hinges left brown flakes on his fingertips when he brushed the dust out of the crack of the lid. He’d need to pry it open… 

“Hey Harvey, can I borrow a knife?”

Harvey sat up as much as the aches of his back permitted to glare a hole in his friend’s neck. “The hell you need my daggers for?” he demanded defensively, “Those are the best daggers in this godforsaken city.” He’d regret the effort he put into articulating in a few minutes, of course, but this was about the daggers and like hell was he just handing them off to someone even if that someone was Bruce. He’d fought and bled for those, earned them in his pain and they belonged to him in a way no other person could possibly relate to. He’d have earned a knighthood with those blades if his father hadn’t ruined it all by killing the last priest. Being blamed for that crime had spoiled Harvey’s whole life.  
But the blades, the blades were his prized possessions. Bruce needed a very good reason to even touch them. 

His best friend didn’t flinch under the heat of his stare. Harvey raised his eyebrows, Bruce narrowed his eyes. 

“An answer, Bruce.”

“Dragon eggs.”

Harvey didn’t move. “Eggs? There are none left. Don’t be silly,” he rasped, and yep he was regretting being angry about the knives now. There were no dragon eggs left in Gotham: everyone knew it and most people regretted it. Bruce rolled his eyes. Romantic notions like the return of the dragons belonged in the rich districts, not in the grubby slums. This life was the reality, bells and whistles and no money and disease ravaging the people who were trampled under the sharp hooves and wheels of industry and progress. Bruce’s life was glitter and green plants and bright clothes; Harvey’s was old blankets and illness and grey smog. 

Something in the box moved as Bruce shook it gently. “I think we should take a look,” he said, “This was in my mother’s things with a lot of dragon diaries and studies.” No, it was too impossible. The knives weren’t for proving the emptiness of hope, but for building it up in the fight for justice. 

“Prying that box open and finding nothing isn’t what my knives are for, Bruce.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Don’t,” hissed Harvey, “you don’t get to talk like that. You know I trust you. This isn’t about trust, Bruce.” He slid down the heap of blankets, letting Bruce help him lie flat comfortably. He closed his eyes. “The knives, they’re as much me as your stars. I have to be the one to use them.”

Silence.

“Okay.”

It took fifteen minutes for Harvey to get his breathing back under control. The medicine really helped ease the sewn-tight pain in his lungs, but it was so difficult to get hold of in this part of the city. Gotham was known for it’se epidemics. Doctors with the knowledge and capacity to help always tried to stay away in fear of the city’s depravity catching. The pretty yet unassuming dark box lay heavily in his lap, rubbed clean by one of the softer rags Bruce had found when he tucked Harvey into his bed. If they opened it they would be disappointed. 

Harvey picked up the shorter of the blades. They balanced perfectly, exactly the same length, a masterpiece of smithing which gave him two fifteen inch knives capable of great things. This blade was short of eleven inches, the length made up by the handle. The other blade was longer by a little over an inch. He scraped at the dirt crusted into the lid and hinges, picking slowly all around the box until he could slide the tip of the knife into the box. “Bruce, I want you to know that if anything happens to the blade I blame you.”

He slid the blade to the front of the box, started to prise. The lid shifted too slowly for Bruce but he dared not interfere, dared not distract his best friend from his task. After what felt like a century of waiting something cracked and they froze, eyes on the box, breath held, two deer caught in lamplight of the unknown, the new.  
Harvey set the dagger down, traced his fingers under the hatch of the lid. 

The eggs, two eggs the size of a goose’s, glistened even in the dull light. One glistened like opal, white and blue and pale tones of every colour the stones came in. The other shone like jet, ebony and raven and midnight and ink, mingled shades of shadow. They were the most exquisite thing Harvey had ever seen. 

“We did it,” said Bruce through the joyful tears. “Harv, we found the way forward.”

The ache in his lungs dimmed, dimmed like a lamp with the gas supply cut and Harvey could breathe again, could take the first deep breath in forever, felt the agony of his illness fade away like the mist under dawn. Freedom. Free from pain. The eggs, the dragons, even dormant, could do this? 

“We have to hatch them, Bruce. We have to hatch them,” said Harvey with all the intensity that had very nearly made him a knight. The mills started to hum up the hill, feet tramping inexorably into the future. “You were right and I was wrong, but I’m better. These eggs, they healed me, Bruce. Think what two full dragons could do!”

Bruce leapt to his feet, laughing at Harvey’s renewed energy. He offered up the box (a month’s worth) of medicine to his brother in arms, and with a grin as sharp as his knives Harvey took the box and slipped out of the room. The strength, the grace of him, that sleek catlike ability to gut his prey before they even noticed, the speed Harvey could put on when scaling a roof, he’d forgotten. The door opened, Harvey flashed a hand signal. Bruce slid his satchel over his shoulders and they were off, scaling the rough brick and marching through the Narrows with no need to hide.

The Prince, and his White Knight.

There were no priests left, Harvey’s father had ensured that, but Bruce knew the loophole of Knighthood. In the old days a King of the region could claim his own Knights to his side, like King Arthur of the many tales. With two dragons who would tell them no? He strode out, chin high, shoulders back, fully aware of Harvey looking at his side without a care in the world. People stared and whispered and tittered but they never stopped, marching all the way to the Main Hall where a fire always burned.

Bruce turned to Harvey.

“The honour is yours, White Knight.”

“No, Prince, ours,” answered Harvey with a smile. They each took an egg – Bruce the jet, Harvey the opal, and cast them into the fire in a shower of sparks. The flames grew and grew like nothing they’d seen before, wrapping around them protectively as people screamed and called for guns and lamps.  
The smoke didn’t clear fast, and when it did no sign of the two men remained. They did not reappear until five years later.

Nobody had ever seen anyone ride a dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> Swear down, next chapter will have dragons in.


End file.
